Calculus: Early Transcendentals

This book is excellent.It is immediately obvious that the author understands his subject well AND can communicate his understanding clearly.It takes a traditionally feared subject and makes it clear and easy to understand. I strongly recommend this book. I am currently using it to teach my grade 11 son calculus. He finds it far clearer and easier to understand than his school calculus textbook. .

Contrary to what some reviewers have written, I feel that Stewart's Calculus book is easily the best textbook I have encountered so far in college. In my opinion, the best indication of a textbook's worth is having to learn the material solely through the text, instead in addition to a lecturer; this book passed that test with flying colors.Of course I had calculus lecturers, but every one of them was horrible. For Calc I (single variable), the professor spoke in a thick Russian accent; in Calc II (advanced integration/series, sequences), the professor was simply inadequate and didn't know how to explain anything; in Calc III (multivariable), the professor was a crazy Polish guy bent on teaching us calculus using his own weird linear algebra/advanced math methods (you'd think Berkeley might assign some better math professors...). In every case, I ended up shunning the lectures and learning everything straight from Stewart. Every chapter was teeming with great example problems, and wasn't saturated with unnecessary proofs (read the Principia or other advanced books if you're interested in that sort of thing). Perhaps the homework problems weren't always as challenging as other books, but I'd rather understand the problems than sit around staring an unsolvable puzzle for 3 hours. Again I say, best college text I've had so far. I highly recommend it.

I was one of the pre-publication reviewers for the second edition of this book. I have not been shy about telling a publisher that their book stinks if that's my opinion. But the Stewart book was then, and remains now, IMHO, the best introductory calculus text available. Please note that the majority of negative reviews came from people who have seen exactly one calculus book, and they clearly don't like calculus! But I have taught from three of the most popular books, and I've read most of the others. There may be other books which take a radically entertaining, non-traditional, and more superficial approach to the subject, and those books may meet with approval from people who really don't want to learn calculus. But of those (many) books which cover the traditional topics in an introductory calculus course, no other author has written a text as learnable as Stewart's. On every topic, Stewart is clearly conscious of the fact that his reader doesn't already know the subject, and he has given some thought to exactly what has to be explained in order for the student to learn successfully. Remember, most textbooks are not written for students: they are written for the professors who are going to choose the books. Professors are not generally impressed with a book which spends a half page clearly describing the meaning of a theorem which can be written with a one-line equation. But students will appreciate the effort Stewart has exerted to help them learn. Stewart does not sugar-coat or resort to gimmicks or superficiality in order to make the material learnable. All the material is there, it's just presented with an awareness that the reader is trying to learn calculus for the first time. If you are taking a calculus course with any other book, try to get a cheap used copy of the Stewart to use as a supplement. It will help!

This is an excellent calculus text. It is, in fact, one of the best texts I have ever used. The explanations are perfectly clear and concise; the examples extensive and relevant. The exercises cover the material beautifully, and are great practice for exams.One reviewer below complains that the text does not cover any analysis. This is true, but is hardly a serious flaw. If you are looking for coverage of analysis, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a text that covers the fundamentals of calculus with clarity and depth, this is the one to go for.

This book is perfect for anybody who wants to learn calculus from scratch. Especially if you are the kind of person who definately requires proofs for everything before you believe in it. It includes lots of rigourous and clear proofs for almost all the theorems. There are only a very few theorems not proven in here, which you will have to find in a more advanced book.It also makes an amazing reference book whenever you are doing other work. But beware, there are quite a bunch of typos, so don't take every single formula in it as definite unless you've double checked it yourself.